4 ms·

Luxury beliefs. The elite promote agendas that will never impact them directly but will fulfill their internal needs to feel righteous

koboll 7y ago
What? He's explicitly saying it will impact him directly.
- kyledrake 7y ago
  It won't, and Bill will and has spoken out against any serious proposals to tax wealth, which is a different kind of taxation than an income and even an estate tax. Seriously this happened only a month ago, how has everyone already forgotten about it? https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/07/taxing-bill-gates-100-billion-counters-bernie-sanders-could-end-homelessness-and https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/07/taxing-bill-gat...
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Whether Bill likes it or not, a wealth tax is likely a non-starter anyway. It's amazing that several candidates are running on a wealth tax when it is pretty likely that it would require a constitutional amendment. Courts already found the carriage tax unconstitutional, which is effectively the same thing.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      Are you sure? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylton_v._United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylton_v._United_States
      - jjeaff 7y ago
        I must have misremembered that detail. But I believe the point of what I had read was that a direct tax would be unconstitutional. A carriage tax was found to not be a direct tax apparently. But a general wealth tax likely would be.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Why make such blatantly false statements? In that article, Bill Gates said that he has paid 10% of his wealth in taxes, and proposed paying 10% more, but expressed concern about paying 90%. I applaud you for having the chutzpah to link to a source you brazenly misquote.
    - kyledrake 7y ago
      Allowing the billionaires to set the reasonable taxation rates of this discussion is a testament to how brainscattered people are on this. 10% would still leave an enormous amount of money left over and far more than he would ever need. His great great great grandchildren would still be multi-billionaires.
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      lol at 10% more. A whopping 20%. US Federal income tax for 2020 is 24% at $85,525 for a single filer ($171,050). The long-term capital gains tax rates are 0%, 15% and 20% under the 2018 changes.
- isoskeles 7y ago
  Is he proposing a tax on capital gains or income? Where do you think Bill Gates gets his money nowadays?
- rkochman 7y ago
  In dollars, sure, but he’s already giving most of his money away, so it won’t really meaningfully impact him. For decades, Microsoft benefitted from there being no personal income tax, making it easier to recruit employees to its Redmond headquarters. It would have been more meaningful if he came out in favor of the income tax in the 90s, rather than right now.
  - tracer4201 7y ago
    The key part here is he gets to decide who gets his money and how much.
jordache 7y ago
ha you just don't want to pay your fair share.
crimsonalucard 7y ago
At a certain level of wealth people become unbiased. They can look at a system from an impartial point of view because they are so wealthy they are no longer part of the system. Bill Gates is so rich that income tax is no longer a factor for him anymore. When he says that Washington needs an increase in income tax he's giving an unbiased point of view. I trust his intentions more than I trust my own. I am not elite, therefore I participate in the system. My own individual wants and desires tell me that I don't want to be taxed. My view of the system as a whole is therefore clouded by my own selfish desires. Perhaps his position needs to be rebranded to be even more inline with intentions: An exclusive tax for the elite.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > At a certain level of wealth people become unbiased I'd modify this to "at a certain level of wealth, one can afford to be unbiased." Plenty of the very wealthy are biased. For those with inherited wealth who never learned any productive skills, debating higher taxes could feel existential.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    Yeah you're right. I was more referring to this specific context.
- DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
  > At a certain level of wealth people become unbiased. Strongly disagree. Consider people like Gina Rinehart or various Russian oligarchs - their wealth is well into the billions yet they do not act as though they are above the system. Bill Gates and other modern tech-billionaires are different to the rest insofar as they share a meritocratic ethos and didn't inherit their wealth (granted, many of them had privileged upbringings, but it's not fair to compare Gates' upbringing as the son of a highly successful lawyer to people like Rinehart). And of course, the current US President - assuming we can believe his claims about how rich and successful he actually is.
  - 7y ago
Schweigi 7y ago
Not sure why you get downvoted. Most people with more money and especially on his level have only little exposure to income taxes. Even the estate taxes will not have a big impact when doing proper tax planning.
- gdulli 7y ago
  He or she missed the entire point of the article. > he proposes raising the estate tax, and closing certain loopholes “many wealthy people take advantage of.”
  - Schweigi 7y ago
    It would have been great if he went into details on how to close those “loopholes”. Most the “loopholes” are on purpose to stimulate business growth and support legitimate charities. The advantage of wealthier people is that they can structure their assets as businesses or charities so cracking down on those “loopholes” is not easy without affecting the economy. If he is serious he should advocate for a wealth tax. That is one of the best ways to close the “loopholes”. But for now it seems he tries to keep out of that discussion.
tapland 7y ago
It's almost always the case that more well off people are against taxes because they naturally contribute more than they use of the tax pool. People with low incomes are usually the ones benefiting the most from higher tax rates.
anoncake 7y ago
If he were poor, he'd be accused of egoism. If normal upper or middle class, of hypocrisy. There's a suitable ad hominem for everyone.
gdulli 7y ago
At least read the beginning of the article. > ”It was nearly two decades ago that my dad and I started calling for an increase in the federal estate tax and for an estate tax in our home state of Washington”
nostromo 7y ago
I like Bill, but I agree. Notice how averse Bill was to Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax idea. That's a tax that would actually impact his bottom line. Instead he supports an income tax -- which would effect working people the same way a wealth tax would effect him -- but would have almost no impact on his personal wealth.
- lend000 7y ago
  If only we could combine the two for a wealth-based income tax. If you're already worth 20M, should you be paying a higher rate on your 500k in interest than if you just sold your first company for 500k and previously had nothing? I think that's a reasonable way to address income inequality in the long run without forcing people to liquidate assets, especially those like Elon Musk who have most of their wealth tied into companies they actively manage or people whose entire net worth is tied up in historical family properties.
- teslaberry 7y ago
  theres a lot of problems woth the tax code. the real problem is democracy promotes jealousy by the mobs. bill gates wealth is a symptom bot a cause. this basic observation is lost on jealous people who cannot think with eational calm minds and think with emotion. the left emboldens this feminin style emotional thinking. If a doctor treated his patients symptoms theyd feel great mostly and thabj the doctor up until they died. and thats how medicine was for most of human history until rational thinkers came to dominate the governance of the cartel that practices medicine. theyre call moder western doctors. if you want to byild sustainable taxation look at how th systems money floes were unsustainable bastardized. IT NEVER staryed with some guy being richer than you. and it wont be fixed by indulging misheld dreams that yiu can fix everuthing by pulling down the endproduct of this outcome. you must divert the river streams this includes preveneting bill gates from using his funds to lobby against this. hint....most unearned income is taxed little if at all. and that is how bill gates fortune keeps him richer and richer. just like most everyone else with excessive savings and capital.

koboll 7y ago

What? He's explicitly saying it will impact him directly.

kyledrake 7y ago
It won't, and Bill will and has spoken out against any serious proposals to tax wealth, which is a different kind of taxation than an income and even an estate tax. Seriously this happened only a month ago, how has everyone already forgotten about it? https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/07/taxing-bill-gates-100-billion-counters-bernie-sanders-could-end-homelessness-and https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/07/taxing-bill-gat...
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Whether Bill likes it or not, a wealth tax is likely a non-starter anyway. It's amazing that several candidates are running on a wealth tax when it is pretty likely that it would require a constitutional amendment. Courts already found the carriage tax unconstitutional, which is effectively the same thing.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Are you sure? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylton_v._United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylton_v._United_States
    - jjeaff 7y ago
      I must have misremembered that detail. But I believe the point of what I had read was that a direct tax would be unconstitutional. A carriage tax was found to not be a direct tax apparently. But a general wealth tax likely would be.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Why make such blatantly false statements? In that article, Bill Gates said that he has paid 10% of his wealth in taxes, and proposed paying 10% more, but expressed concern about paying 90%. I applaud you for having the chutzpah to link to a source you brazenly misquote.
  - kyledrake 7y ago
    Allowing the billionaires to set the reasonable taxation rates of this discussion is a testament to how brainscattered people are on this. 10% would still leave an enormous amount of money left over and far more than he would ever need. His great great great grandchildren would still be multi-billionaires.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    lol at 10% more. A whopping 20%. US Federal income tax for 2020 is 24% at $85,525 for a single filer ($171,050). The long-term capital gains tax rates are 0%, 15% and 20% under the 2018 changes.
isoskeles 7y ago
Is he proposing a tax on capital gains or income? Where do you think Bill Gates gets his money nowadays?
rkochman 7y ago
In dollars, sure, but he’s already giving most of his money away, so it won’t really meaningfully impact him. For decades, Microsoft benefitted from there being no personal income tax, making it easier to recruit employees to its Redmond headquarters. It would have been more meaningful if he came out in favor of the income tax in the 90s, rather than right now.
- tracer4201 7y ago
  The key part here is he gets to decide who gets his money and how much.

jordache 7y ago

ha you just don't want to pay your fair share.

crimsonalucard 7y ago

At a certain level of wealth people become unbiased. They can look at a system from an impartial point of view because they are so wealthy they are no longer part of the system. Bill Gates is so rich that income tax is no longer a factor for him anymore. When he says that Washington needs an increase in income tax he's giving an unbiased point of view. I trust his intentions more than I trust my own. I am not elite, therefore I participate in the system. My own individual wants and desires tell me that I don't want to be taxed. My view of the system as a whole is therefore clouded by my own selfish desires. Perhaps his position needs to be rebranded to be even more inline with intentions: An exclusive tax for the elite.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> At a certain level of wealth people become unbiased I'd modify this to "at a certain level of wealth, one can afford to be unbiased." Plenty of the very wealthy are biased. For those with inherited wealth who never learned any productive skills, debating higher taxes could feel existential.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Yeah you're right. I was more referring to this specific context.
DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
> At a certain level of wealth people become unbiased. Strongly disagree. Consider people like Gina Rinehart or various Russian oligarchs - their wealth is well into the billions yet they do not act as though they are above the system. Bill Gates and other modern tech-billionaires are different to the rest insofar as they share a meritocratic ethos and didn't inherit their wealth (granted, many of them had privileged upbringings, but it's not fair to compare Gates' upbringing as the son of a highly successful lawyer to people like Rinehart). And of course, the current US President - assuming we can believe his claims about how rich and successful he actually is.
- 7y ago

Schweigi 7y ago

Not sure why you get downvoted. Most people with more money and especially on his level have only little exposure to income taxes. Even the estate taxes will not have a big impact when doing proper tax planning.

gdulli 7y ago
He or she missed the entire point of the article. > he proposes raising the estate tax, and closing certain loopholes “many wealthy people take advantage of.”
- Schweigi 7y ago
  It would have been great if he went into details on how to close those “loopholes”. Most the “loopholes” are on purpose to stimulate business growth and support legitimate charities. The advantage of wealthier people is that they can structure their assets as businesses or charities so cracking down on those “loopholes” is not easy without affecting the economy. If he is serious he should advocate for a wealth tax. That is one of the best ways to close the “loopholes”. But for now it seems he tries to keep out of that discussion.

tapland 7y ago

It's almost always the case that more well off people are against taxes because they naturally contribute more than they use of the tax pool. People with low incomes are usually the ones benefiting the most from higher tax rates.

anoncake 7y ago

If he were poor, he'd be accused of egoism. If normal upper or middle class, of hypocrisy. There's a suitable ad hominem for everyone.

gdulli 7y ago

At least read the beginning of the article. > ”It was nearly two decades ago that my dad and I started calling for an increase in the federal estate tax and for an estate tax in our home state of Washington”

nostromo 7y ago

I like Bill, but I agree. Notice how averse Bill was to Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax idea. That's a tax that would actually impact his bottom line. Instead he supports an income tax -- which would effect working people the same way a wealth tax would effect him -- but would have almost no impact on his personal wealth.

lend000 7y ago
If only we could combine the two for a wealth-based income tax. If you're already worth 20M, should you be paying a higher rate on your 500k in interest than if you just sold your first company for 500k and previously had nothing? I think that's a reasonable way to address income inequality in the long run without forcing people to liquidate assets, especially those like Elon Musk who have most of their wealth tied into companies they actively manage or people whose entire net worth is tied up in historical family properties.
teslaberry 7y ago
theres a lot of problems woth the tax code. the real problem is democracy promotes jealousy by the mobs. bill gates wealth is a symptom bot a cause. this basic observation is lost on jealous people who cannot think with eational calm minds and think with emotion. the left emboldens this feminin style emotional thinking. If a doctor treated his patients symptoms theyd feel great mostly and thabj the doctor up until they died. and thats how medicine was for most of human history until rational thinkers came to dominate the governance of the cartel that practices medicine. theyre call moder western doctors. if you want to byild sustainable taxation look at how th systems money floes were unsustainable bastardized. IT NEVER staryed with some guy being richer than you. and it wont be fixed by indulging misheld dreams that yiu can fix everuthing by pulling down the endproduct of this outcome. you must divert the river streams this includes preveneting bill gates from using his funds to lobby against this. hint....most unearned income is taxed little if at all. and that is how bill gates fortune keeps him richer and richer. just like most everyone else with excessive savings and capital.